Only Human
by HeyDay
Summary: All Might thanks Stain for saving Deku's life. Stain rants about all that's wrong with the world.


Seventeen dead and twenty-four more put into retirement and yet, when it was Deku who might have died, Stain is as much a hero as those he despises. So why be the villain in everything else?

This is the question that All Might ponders all the way down Tartarus.

"You inspire me," Stain says flatly when All Might steps into his cell. "I just want you to know that."

"I fail to see how my actions could have compelled you to murder and cripple my colleagues," All Might retorts as he thinks of Ingenium. Oh, they'll try rehabilitation and surgery, but it is more than likely he will never walk again. If Stain's blade had cut a little higher up the spine, the man might have been a vegetable as well as a paraplegic. Or dead.

All Might considers his weekly visits to his own specialists to follow up on the condition of his destroyed intestines. Blood tests, meetings with dieticians to find something suitable for his lack of a stomach, mundane things like that. While others would believe Heroes to be otherwise, they were still nothing but flesh and bone at the end of the day, and All Might had to keep pretending that it wasn't the truth.

Stain doesn't blink and doesn't flinch. "Who watches the watchers?" He asks instead.

"Excuse me?"

"You Heroes. Who watches them? Who sees to it that they are every bit as virtuous as they are under the spotlight?"

"They are good people. You have no right to condemn them."

Stain snorts. "Then by whose right, if not the citizens who are at risk because of them?"

"We protect the people," All Might protests.

"You leverage them," Stain counters. "Because of you, more and more Villains spring up by the hour, eager to become famous because they beat a Hero, or because they are beaten by someone like you. Years ago, Villains robbed banks because they needed money. Now they hold everyone in the bank hostage so they can be a part of the spectacle too."

"So you're saying all Heroes should quit?" All Might remembers the days when the world quailed under All For One's shadow. "We're not the problem here."

"Answer this for me," Stain says. "If you had no Quirk, and there was a Villain terrorising the street, would you intervene?"

"Of course," All Might replies without hesitation. "Every time."

"Can you say the same for your colleagues? Would they risk themselves, if there were no cameras? Would they put their lives on the line, if there was no gratitude or prestige to be had?"

"Their morality would require no less."

Stain cackles at that. "Morality? Don't make me laugh. The first thing I learned in my time at the UA was that no-one there had the faintest clue what it meant to do good in the world. Every kid with a Quirk there wanted to be the strongest. Every kid there wanted to be famous. They wanted to be No. 1. In it to win it. They never stopped to consider why."

"So is that why you go around killing? Because you know better?"

"Because _we _know better," Stain growls, trembling ever so slightly in his bindings and straitjacket. "Because we see that everything we do ripples far and wide. The fact that you leave no good deed undone even when it may make no difference to others. The fact that I am out there striking down hypocrisy wherever I find it and whoever it may be. Without us, peace would have defeated this world long ago."

All Might stares at Stain for a long time. "You're insane," he whispers.

"Perhaps. It takes a kind of insanity for us to believe wholeheartedly what others would deem foolish and naïve. For what's it worth, I believe that we all have our part to play. After all, it is said that brightest light casts the darkest shadow, wouldn't you agree?"

"I thank you for saving my student, but aside from that and in light of what you have just said, I do not consider us to be in agreement on anything else beyond the preservation of Izuku Midoriya's life."

Stain is silent for a beat before he speaks again. "Ah yes, that boy. Well, just between you and me, I believe he just might be ahead of the curve. Kind of like us."

"He is much better than you," All Might thunders. "Better than me."

"Why else do you think I protected him? Like I said before, you inspire me. Maybe the boy as well. I imagine he might even find the middle ground in this delightful conversation of ours."

All Might finds it hard to keep his hands from shaking. "I think you are misguided and I know you must have been a good man once. I hope you will be a good man once more someday."

But Stain gets the last word in as All Might turns to leave. "No, One for All. Not good. Never good. At the end of the day, whether we are Villains or Heroes or Quirkless, we're still only human and very fallible."

And the door slams shut.


End file.
